Claiming that there is no rift within the ruling National People’s Party, Meghalaya Chief Minister and NPP National President Conrad K. Sangma launched a sharp attack on the Opposition MLAs, alleging a glaring lack of development in their constituencies and questioning the utilisation of MLA and MP schemes.
“Sometimes I look at different constituencies, especially in the opposition areas, and there is a lack of development. Sometimes I doubt whether the MLA schemes are used properly or not in these constituencies. I hope the people of those areas will go ahead and file RTI and find out how many MLAs are spending their MLA schemes properly or not, how the MPs are spending their schemes or not properly. Please file RTI and find out. I am not seeing the kind of development and kind of work that should be happening,” Sangma said, throwing a direct challenge to opposition representatives.
Asserting that the NPP remains the most cohesive political force in the state, Sangma brushed aside any speculation of internal discord. “There is no rift between NPP leaders in Meghalaya. In my entire political career till date, that spans about 25 years and above, the way the NPP team today is working, I can assure you that there is no other team that can work like that of the National People’s Party. The kind of commitment that we have — we have differences, I don’t say we agree on everything — this is democracy, we may not agree. Then we come together and say we agree to disagree but we will continue to work together,” he said.
Reiterating that party unity is rooted in collective decision-making, Sangma added, “If there is a difference of opinion, we will be in the room, we will discuss it. But we will come out with one opinion and one decision in the end. We will never go against that decision. The respect that we have in our party — we may have differences as I have said — but there is always effort from our side that we reach out. It’s not about one individual or one person’s decision, it is the collective decision that we take and we work together.”
